The Christmas Program
by planet p
Summary: Story Repost! Maybe AU; Timmy goes visiting.


**The Christmas Program** by planet p

**Disclaimer** I don't own _the Pretender_ or any of its characters.

* * *

_1970_

The radio played from the sideboard across the kitchen. 14-year-old Annie sat at the kitchen table writing out Christmas cards. She sighed, depressed. "Dear Mr. and Mrs. James Parker and daughter," she wrote, speaking the words as she did. The printed message in the card read: May the joy and peace of Christmas be with you throughout the year. She signed the card: Regards, Dr. William Raines and family. She selected another card.

"Don't write that," her father said from behind her.

Annie slouched and turned to face him.

"You just put your own name down there too so they'll know who did all of this fantastic writing."

"Okay, da," she said, and was glad when her father left the kitchen. That was the point: she didn't want anyone to know who had written all of these stupid cards out!

She sorted through the cards until she found one with the same picture on the front and wrote it out again. She wrote: Regards, William, Edna and Annie.

She sighed and picked up the next card and turned it over. It was a smiley snowman. She scrunched up her nose. Who honestly bought these things? It got merit points for cuteness but you couldn't actually send it to anyone you knew!

She turned the snowman card over and scrawled in at the top: "Dear Sydney and Mishell,"…

* * *

Her mother took pictures with a camera. Annie was glad her mother couldn't see the look on her face because all she could see would be a girl dressed up as a stupid reindeer. That's what she was for the Christmas program – a stupid reindeer – the stupidest, she bet!

She stood with the other students and sung Christmas songs and wished it to be over so she could find something to stuff her mouth with when her mother told her how wonderful she had been and asked her some question she didn't want to answer.

* * *

Bounding off the stage, she walked with her mother to the Supper Room. "Mom," she said, "I sucked! Can we not talk about it?"

Her mother frowned, but complied. Annie was glad.

* * *

Annie spotted her father over by the door, talking to a boy. "Dad," she said, through a mouthful of food, "tell me you didn't see me making a complete fool of myself! Tell me you closed your eyes and missed the whole thing!"

Her father frowned.

"Mom took pictures," Annie whined.

"This is Timmy," he said.

Annie shrugged. "I'm Annie," Annie said. "My life sucks," she added quietly, but not quietly enough so that her father did not catch what she had said and frown. Annie slouched.

Annie grabbed the kid's hand. "They have food," she said, and pulled him after her.

* * *

Annie didn't speak on the drive home. The radio played and she tried not to be sick on Timmy. She supposed she shouldn't have eaten quite so much, but the kid hardly ate anything at all and she had been trying to set a good example.

* * *

Annie woke early in the morning. She sat and shook Timmy, who had been sleeping beside her, much to her annoyance last night. "Wake up," she told him quietly in a language he didn't recognize. She didn't want to wake her parents so early.

* * *

The two children stood in the laundry with their bare feet. "I dare you," Annie said, handing Timmy one of the hors d'oeuvres with raw pickled salmon her mother had made for the Christmas program but no one had eaten so she'd had to bring them home because her mother was very particular about food not being wasted.

Timmy frowned.

"Go on," Annie encouraged the younger.

Timmy took the hors d'oeuvre and stuffed it in his mouth and promptly choked on it.

Annie patted him on the back.

"What is it?" Timmy asked, not wanting to spit it back up in front of her.

"Fish."

"Did you cook it?"

"No," Annie said. "It's pickled fish."

Timmy made a face.

Annie poured him some water in a plastic tumbler at the sink.

Timmy took the tumbler and drank it.

"You want some more?" she asked, frowning.

"No."

She rinsed the tumbler and turned it upside down on top of the fridge.

* * *

"Do you have many friends?" Annie asked from the fridge.

"No," Timmy said.

Annie handed him a knife from out of the fridge, the metal cold on his fingers, and shut the fridge door, a loaf of bread and block of cheese in hand. She walked to the washing machine, and placed each item on the lid.

"Why do you have your kitchen in the laundry?" Timmy asked.

Annie took the knife from him carefully. "It's just if we need to keep food in it for parties."

Timmy frowned, watching Annie cut a slice of cheese. She handed him a cheese sandwich.

"What?" she said, because he wasn't eating his sandwich, having made herself a sandwich and taken a big bite out of it. "I'm eating it," she said, as if to illustrate that it was okay – she wasn't dead.

Timmy took a bite of his rye bread and cheese sandwich and said nothing.

* * *

Annie, in her sheep's wool jumper and orange raincoat, trudged along behind her father and Timmy. They were headed to the corner store for cigarettes and gum. She wished it would be Christmas soon and then Christmas could be over.

"You put it in your mouth," she said to Timmy of the gum, popping her own piece of gum into her mouth.

Annie got a look.

Timmy put his gum in his mouth.

Annie slouched. Who didn't know about gum?

* * *

They came home and listened to songs on the radio and chewed their gum. Annie pretended not to notice the look her mother gave her father. Gum was banned.

"Are you staying long?" Annie asked, to distract Timmy from her parents.

He shrugged. "I don't think so," he said.

Annie nodded. "That sucks," she said.

* * *

Annie prodded her fork at her shaved cucumber slices and boiled potato. She hated boiled potato. Couldn't she have what all the other kids had?

* * *

Timmy had to go after lunch. Annie punched him in the arm. "Be seeing you," she said.

Her father gave her a look. She shrugged and walked off.

Timmy put a hand on his arm and walked to the car with Annie's father.

Annie's mother came to the car to hug the boy goodbye and wished him a safe trip in that same foreign language that Timmy had not understood.

The car started and disappeared from the driveway.


End file.
